Substandard TV Program Audio [Archive] - Audioholics Home Theater Forums

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mikenyc

09-05-2002, 12:02 PM

I was scanning the Tv last night and temporarily lighted upon the "American Survivor" thingy on FOX.

For a music entertainment program, with as many viewers as it's claiming are watching, I was totally dumbstruck at the LOUSY audio that was being broadcast !

I'm sure that they were broadcasting from a state-of-the-art digital, all the "bells and whistles" audio board setup. I'm sure it sounded great in the production truck...yeah, right...but what really went on, is that NOBODY CARED ! The moron chief audio engineer, didn't have a clue as to what was being broadcast and didn't seem to care !

The standard axiom, that a techy would reply to such charges would be "well, it's coming out of here ok" ! And they would probably blame it on the satellite uplink facility, I'm sure!

Granted, I only was at the accident location, two minutes *approximately*, but it sounded as if the performers were singing from the bottom of one of those empty, and very deep, steel oil barrels.

I couldn't believe it !!!! But then with the FCC concentrating on stock prices and huge, mega-multi-media mergers, what else can you expect, right ?

If it's not this, it's watching/listening to a horrible time compression job on AMC Cable...especially see the film, "Batchelor Party", where Tom Hanks sounds like Secret Squirrel !

There is no need to turn out sub-standard product like all of this, but it just goes to show that no one cares at home...where they should !

And the Tv Media Giants keep shoveling it to us, 24/7 !

 <img src="http://www.audioholics.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':('>

Clint DeBoer

09-06-2002, 10:29 AM

Reminds me of the days when local channel 6 only broadcast in MONO. Imagine watching Star Trek the Next Generation IN MONO!

It was almost unbearable.

Unfortunately, local affiliates are sometimes not as equipped (either in physical gear or in staff competency) as the actual broadcast source, and thus we get sub-par programming audio - quite frequently I might add.

Couple this with the inane limited, somewhat unpredictable, quantities of HBO movies broadcast in Dolby Digital and you have the next level of problems. Why on earth the main movie channels do not re-encode all of their material and broadcast everything in DD is beyond me. We certainly pay enough for the services....

mikenyc

09-07-2002, 04:24 AM

Out here on Long Island, in the past year or so, Cablevision is
"going" digital for it's cable boxes and it's wiring to homes! Of course, it's not for free.

We got a new digital cable box by chance, BEFORE, the sales campaign, but only because it was faulty and the installer had one.

The "campaign"...which was just an excuse for a upgrade in service costs and offer high speed internet hookup...was only done to be in compliance for government mandate it, anyway...so, it was a scam from the start. When the sales person came around...or telephoned...I took the opportunity to slam them for their substandard, general service !

I'm sure this is no different than anywhere else.

As to overall program quality, I am aware that at the "head end", there is a monitor wall with a zillion monitors, one "a" scope, and some high school kid monitoring the overall output "levels". He/she has no idea what they are doing, really!

But this doesn't excuse the sound level thing on "American Idol". It was atrocious !!!!!

In the long ago, "olden days", the FCC was concerned with things like program technical quality and enforced regulations on networks and local stations. And there was qualified technical staff to who knew what they were doing !

Today, the FCC is a joke ! The agency has devolved into a joke, where the chairiman and his famous father, has millions of dollars in AOL-Time Warner stock before taking the job, and their general overall concerns are about "protecting" these Media Giants, in the name of encouraging commerce, and putting the broadcast spectrum on the selling block, as some sort of commodity and reason to "sell out". Ever since cable became a "legitimate business", it's become an excuse to slag off and be sloppy.

This perspective has encouraged sloppy technicians, like the moron chief audio engineer who helmed the "American Idol" mess.

Content is "king", quality is in the dumper!

09-09-2002, 05:19 PM

Sometimes the audio problem is not the TV station, but the cable company. I have been experiencing weird audio compression problems with voices actually dropping low, and lower, although the background sound or music remains the same.  Normally all bands get squished! The processing the cable company uses was the culprit, including processing the stereo signals in more of a dual mono, to reduce bandwidth.

I worked for a major market TV station, and good audio was a priority for us.

Most of the problems are retransmission and cable casting, codecs on top of codecs and didgital compression to recuce bandwith.

I rally hate most of teh video these days because of motion artifacts from MPEG being transmitted, decoded, and retransmitted. <img src="http://www.audioholics.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':p'>

mikenyc

09-10-2002, 06:58 PM

Thanks Rory...and you're right about the layers of compression, AFTER, the production truck...and I forgot about that layer of...ahem, responsibility.

As an tech employee in the Tv business, I've seen shows I've worked on, after production, and it's a mess by the time it gets on the home screen...audio AND video.

I don't still fail to understand, how an effort to use the best Tv production equipment, is employed in the production phase, and by the time it gets on the home screen, it's NOTHING like it was shot in the studio. Fielding inquiries from irate producers who see it on their own home sets, what are you going to say ? Right ?

RLA

09-12-2002, 01:12 PM

Hi all
This caught my eye because I cant believe the substandard
Programs on TV Period. *I am a huge SI-FI fan and tune in the SI-FI channel regularly *I cant beleive some of the shows
they have on there *have nothing to do with SI-FI
the dude that is a fortune teller really  makes me mad
I have Direct with over 50 channels and the only reason I have it is for Nascar and Football *and SI-FI other than that
the other channels are substandard *<img src="http://www.audioholics.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'>